Strange News

Pablo Picasso's "dream" painting has turned into a $139 million nightmare

Pablo Picasso's "dream" painting has turned into a $139 million nightmare for Steve Wynn.
In an accident witnessed by a group that included Barbara Walters and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Nicholas Pileggi, Wynn accidentally poked a hole in Picasso's 74-year-old painting, "Le Reve," French for "The Dream."
A day earlier, Wynn had finalized a record $139 million deal for the painting of Picasso's mistress, Wynn told The New Yorker magazine
The accident occurred as a gesturing Wynn, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that affects peripheral vision, struck the painting with his right elbow, leaving a hole the size of a silver dollar in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter, Picasso's 21-year-old mistress.
"Oh shit, look what I've done," Wynn said, according to Ephron, who gave her account in a blog published on Monday.
Wynn paid $48.4 million for the Picasso in 1997 and had agreed to sell it to art collector Steven Cohen. The $139 million would have been $4 million higher than the previous high for a work of art, according to The New Yorker.
Cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder paid $135 million in July for Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I."
Wynn plans to restore "Le Reve" and keep it.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Oct-17-Tue-2006/news/10274785.html


Diamonds are icing on $20 million wedding cake


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A confection billed as the most expensive wedding cake in the world makes its debut on Monday night in Beverly Hills, but is likely to cause indigestion.
The extravagant $20 million diamond-studded wedding cake, created by Mimi So Jewelers and cake designer Nahid La Patisserie Artistique, is the star attraction of the Luxury Brands Bridal Show and will be unveiled on exclusive Rodeo Drive.
"Where else would you debut a $20 million wedding cake but on Rodeo Drive?" said show organizer Ilona Sherman.
The cake is protected by a team of uniformed security guards at all times, she said. And there's no way it will ever be eaten.
"I think diamonds are too hard on the stomach," Sherman said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061017/od_nm/wedding_cake_dc;_ylt=AoMQfMT0VLUNGZOIUButrYMSH9EA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA----

and more on marriage...


Rush to marry ends in tragedy
KARACHI (Reuters) - A Pakistani man has committed suicide outside his fiancee's home after he thought he accidentally killed her while trying to persuade her to get married early, police said Saturday.
The man, Ahmed Ashraf, was shooting a gun in the air outside his fiancee's home in the southern city of Karachi on Friday as part of his efforts to persuade her to get married two months early when a stray bullet accidently hit her, police said.
"He was so eager to get married he stood in front of his fiancee's house and started firing shots in the air to catch her attention," said investigating officer Ghulam Hussain.
The young woman was coming downstairs when a bullet ricocheted off a wall and hit her. She fell down screaming "I have been shot," Hussain said.
"He thought he had killed her and within seconds shot himself. The girl is fine," Hussain said.
"It is a tragic accident. They were engaged to be married with their parents' consent on December 25. He was insisting they get married earlier."
Ashraf had told his fiancee, Naureen, he would do something drastic if she didn't agree to get married straight away. The woman insisted the marriage date had already been set and there was no need to hurry, Hussain said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061016/od_nm/pakistan_marriage_dc;_ylt=Asin_wSdHa9K4N7xqKMH9zkSH9EA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

Home sweet home meet the chocolate igloo


PERUGIA, Italy (Reuters) - Four Italians have constructed what they believe is the world's first full-sized chocolate igloo but they have yet to solve an age-old problem.
It still melts.
"It was a tough thing to do, much more difficult than building a normal snow igloo," Marco Fanti, 45, who used to race cars in desert rallies, told Reuters as he stood beside the 1.65-metre-high, dome-shaped traditional Inuit shelter made of some 330 dark chocolate bricks.
Fanti and fellow instructors at a survival school took 23 hours working with tricky, crumbling chocolate material to construct what they believe to be the world's first chocolate igloo for the Eurochocolate fair in Perugia.
They normally build one made of snow, for survival courses, within three to four hours.
Fanti said it has yet to be decided what to do with the 3.6- tonne igloo -- which is kept indoors and will start melting at above 30 C -- when the fair ends on Oct 22.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061016/od_nm/chocolate_igloo_dc;_ylt=Ai7E0h3cmOeJh248DfBSleUSH9EA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--